Biblical Interpretaton and Communication

 Good morning, 

Some thoughts as I wrestle with some things...if we are off on our navigation when we leave the harbor, we will be far off from our destination. 

I am sure we mean well, but to replace Biblical epistemology and hermeneutics with a system that anyone can learn, including those without the Holy Spirit, to essentially throw out 1 Corinthians Chapter 2 and what Jesus says about the Holy Spirit in the Upper Room, is to invite confusion...and I see a lot of confusion...I see humanism today in places where I would not have thought possible. This is not to say that we don't do other spade work...as we are able, as we are gifted...but it does mean that we have no warrant to depart from the foundation of Scripture. 

John 5:39; 6:33.

We are not immune from the errors of the Pharisees. Yes? 

I think perhaps one day we will be in the place of Alec Guinness in Bridge Over the River Kwai, when after willingly serving as a slave to the Japanese (and inducing others to do so), he says something like, "My God, what have I done?" 

Much love,

Bob

Biblical Hermeneutics

Look for Christ Jesus in the passage. How do I see Him?

How do I see the Body of Christ in the passage?

How do I see the Whole Christ (Augustine)?

How do I see Christ in His Body?

How do I see Christ in me, and myself in Christ?

How am I called to obediently respond to this passage?

How are we, as the Body of Christ, called to obediently respond to this passage?

Christ Jesus is our hermeneutic, our epistemology, our message.

“For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).

“In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3).

“Its lamp is the Lamb” (Rev. 21:23).

The Chapter 30 Diner (15)

 

“Do not add to His words, or He will reprove you, and you will be proved a liar.” Proverbs 30:6.

 

What does this verse mean? Can we associate this verse with Revelation 22:18-19?

 

“I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book.” Rev. 22:18-19.

 

While the context of Revelation 22:18-19 is, of course, Revelation; and while the “prophecy” it refers to, in its immediate context, is the book of Revelation; it is natural to apply these two verses to the entire Bible. While their position in the conclusion of the Bible makes this application quite natural, even if Revelation were positioned elsewhere in the order of Biblical books, it would still be natural and appropriate to see these two verses as applying to the entire Bible – for the entire Bible is a prophecy in that it is God speaking forth and revealing Himself; prophecy being a forthtelling and a foretelling.

 

Agur tells us that we should not add to the words of God, every word of God being tested. If we do add to God's words, Agur says that He will reprove us and we will be found liars.

 

What does this mean? What are the words of God? What is the Word of God that we should not add to?

 

Now I suppose that our typical response is that we should not add to the Bible, that we should not consider any other writing on the same level as the Bible, and I agree with this; but is this all that Proverbs 30:6 and Revelation 22:18-19 mean?

 

Is it enough to say, “I believe the Bible is God’s Word and there is nothing else on the same level as the Bible”? Is it enough to say this if we are misrepresenting the Bible? If we are misrepresenting what the Bible says, then are we not either adding to the Word of God or taking away from His Word? Consider that we can misrepresent the Bible by either omission or commission. That is, we can either use the words of the Bible to teach what is not in the Bible, or we can omit to teach elements of the Bible.

 

Not adding to the Word of God nor taking away from the Word of God is more than saying, “I believe the Bible is the Word of God and that nothing else written or verbally said is on the same level as the Bible.” We can mouth these words while functionally denying them. We can deceive ourselves and others into thinking that we are not adding to or taking away from God’s Word, when in practice we are doing one or the other or both.

 

What is one to do? What is a congregation to do?

 

To begin with, the Bible reveals Jesus Christ, and whatever passage we are working through, our desire ought to be to see Jesus Christ; as Augustine points out repeatedly in his expositions on the Psalms, sometimes we see the Head, sometimes we see His Body, sometimes we see the Head and the Body. Jesus’ unveiling of Himself to His disciples in Luke 24, both on the road to Emmaus and in the Upper Room, through the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings, ought to be an example and challenge in our own understanding and teaching of Scripture. If we aren’t seeing and teaching Jesus Christ then we aren’t “seeing” the Bible, for Jesus Christ is the Testimony of Scripture (John 5:39).

 

The Scriptures are Christological and sacramental, we partake of Jesus Christ when the Holy Spirit opens us to the Bible and the Bible to us.

 

We need the anointing of the Holy Spirit to see Christ in the Bible and the Bible in Christ. We cannot know the things of God without the Spirit of God, nor can we communicate the Bible to others without the Holy Spirit (see John chapters 13 – 17; 1 Corinthians 1:17 – 2:16; Acts 1:7-8). As Jesus says in John 6:63, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”

 

We’ll pick this back up in the next post.

 

 

The Challenge of the books of Hebrews and Revelation

 

The two most difficult books of the New Testament to teach, and for the typical Christian to read (at least in the West), are Hebrews and Revelation. Why is this?

 

One reason, common to both, is that they portray the depth of the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings (what we term the Old Testament); they breathe the Old Testament. To hear Hebrews and Revelation taught as they should be, and to read them as they are to be read, to teach them as they should be taught in Christ – requires (with pedagogical acknowledgement to 1 Corinthians Chapter 2 – for Christ will speak what He will speak and teach what He will teach) that the Old Testament seep through the pores of our skin.

 

To teach Hebrews and Revelation without the teacher being at home in the Old Testament is akin to describing the Grand Canyon to others as pseudo tour guides, when our knowledge of the Grand Canyon is from videos and photos, not from actually visiting this natural wonder of the world. The difference between someone who has been to the Grand Canyon and someone who has not, is that if you have been to the Grand Canyon you have had your breath taken away. Frankly, if our breath has not been taken away by the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings we probably ought not to teach either Hebrews or Revelation; unless we purpose to teach them in deep humility, looking for Christ every step of the way, learning the Law, Prophets, and Writings as we go. (Of course, we ought to be teaching in deep humility and looking for Christ always).

 

There is another hurdle in teaching Revelation, one I find almost insurmountable, and that are the popular misconceptions surrounding this letter to seven churches (let’s remember, Revelation is a letter). If we are looking for things other than Christ, then we will not see Christ. If we don’t remember that this is a letter sent by Christ to encourage and warn His People in the first century, then we will not “see” its immediate - historical unveiling of Christ, its telescopic unveiling of Christ, and certainly not its present unveiling of Christ. Misconceptions and second-hand knowledge are always a challenge in teaching the Bible, but perhaps nowhere is this as difficult as in teaching Revelation – we would rather go on an amusement park ride than see Jesus Christ, be faithful to Jesus Christ, and testify to Jesus Christ even unto death.

 

But now I come to the point that spurred me to write this little piece, one particular element that makes teaching and reading Hebrews and Revelation especially challenging – the way we read them. When most of us read Hebrews we read about things on earth that are meant to show us heaven, and when we read Revelation we read about things in the heavens that are meant to show us earth.

 

Another way to put this is that when we read Hebrews we are often reading about earthly events that portray heavenly goings on, and when we read Revelation we are reading about images in the heavens that portray dynamics also occurring on earth. If we read Revelation outside its genre of apocalyptic and prophetic imagery, and outside its Christocentric message – centered on the Bridegroom and His Bride – then we create fanciful stories that are similar to the Star Wars movie franchise – we have new releases every year to keep up with current events and attract crowds.

 

If we read Hebrews and get hung up on the earthly Tabernacle, as many Christians do, then we’ll never see that there is a Greater Tabernacle in the heavens and that that is the Tabernacle that we are called to live in. In Hebrews we see generally earthly things transposed upward, in Revelation we generally see things transposed downward. Both of these books can teach us to live in the commerce between heaven and earth, to live in the “already-not yet.” We are called to see beyond what we see, to wear 3-D glasses if you will, to see Christ in the heavens, in the earth, and in the height and breadth and depth and width of the Word of God. (Note that the Christians addressed in Hebrews and Revelation were both experiencing suffering and persecution).

The crescendo of Revelation’s transposition downward is seen in chapters 21 and 22 (though this fulness is anticipated earlier). The transpositional ascent in Hebrews reaches the summit in 9:23 – 24; 10:10, 14, 19 – 22; and 12:18 – 29.

 

Why is it that our pedagogical response to challenges is to dumb things down rather than to challenge Christians to learn, to grow, to labor in the Scriptures? Why have Hebrews and Revelation become closed books to the much of the church?

I Love a Tree - by Gerhard Emanuel Frost

I Love a Tree

By: Gerhard Emanuel Frost

I have a love affair,

a very private thing,

with one familiar oak.

It grows ten paces from our door,

massive and strong and tall.

This tree comforts and encourages,

calls to me as I leave for my next class:

“If I can grow from a buried acorn,

forgotten by one absentminded squirrel,

perhaps you, too, an absentminded professor,

may say something today, and then forget,

something that may plant an oak

in the forests of humanity.”

So, I believe in acorns;

this is part of my teacher’s creed.

Unique among our trees,

this oak speaks.

It speaks of power and age,

and deep, deep roots;

but, most of all, it tells of suffering,

in its most stark and visible feature:

no major branch grows toward the east!

In some harsh moment of a long and testing past

my tree has felt disaster,

such force of tragedy that it must live its years

without the slightest symmetry.

Distorted, bent, unyielding in every wind

it wrenches at its roots,

but holds and stands to greet the dying winds

that mark the end of the storm.

This special tree,

I name it Job.  

Ponderings on 1 Corinthians Chapters 1 – 4: (3)

“I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, that in everything you were enriched in Him, in all speech and all knowledge, even as the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you, so that you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” (1 Cor. 1:4 – 9/NASB).

This passage reminds us of Philippians 1:6, “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” Paul, as the other Apostles, saw Jesus Christ as the Author and Finisher of our faith, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End; Jesus is the One who initiates our faith and He is the One who completes our faith.

The Holy Spirit has been given to us as the guarantee of this ongoing work of Christ that will culminate in His revelation of Himself through His People and in our completion, as His People, in Him (2 Cor. 1:19 – 22; Eph. 1:13 – 14; Romans 8:18 – 25).

The work of Jesus Christ is such as to make His People blameless; it is Christ’s perfect work of justification and sanctification and glorification (Romans 8:28 – 30; Ephesians 5:25 – 27; 1 Thessalonians 5:23 – 24; 1 Corinthians 1:30-31). As Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 5:24, “Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.” As we, by His grace, behold Jesus Christ and obediently submit to Him, He transforms us into His image. Jesus is the One who knew no sin, and yet He became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5:21).

When our preaching and teaching is Christocentric then our lives orbit around Jesus and He is the Light of our life and we see life in and through Him. We read and hear the Scriptures through and in Him. The thoughts and intents of our hearts radiate from Him and to Him. Jesus Christ is our supreme confidence, He is the love of our lives, He is the heartbeat of the Church. When Christ is our All then we are uninterested in anything less, for nothing compares to the beauty of Jesus Christ, and we cannot desire anything other than intimate relationship with Him and the joy of seeing others come to know Him.

Considering what follows in 1 Corinthians, verses 4 – 9 may take us by surprise. Beginning in 1:10 Paul begins to deal with problems in the church, and yet, prior to 1:10 he has already started dealing with the problems, for Paul is reminding the Corinthians of who they belong to, he is reminding them of the One who began a good work in them, he is reminding them of who they really are – they are not members of a group that follows Paul or Apollos or Peter, not really, they are members of the Body of Jesus Christ.

How often do we begin to address a sinful situation by first pointing out the sin and disobedience, rather than first pointing to Jesus Christ and His perfect work? How often do we first point to our insufficiency rather than Christ’s all-encompassing sufficiency?

When we first point to Christ and His work and His holiness, then our insufficiency and sin is magnified in the light of His glory; but then we are also given hope and a way out of our disobedience as we behold His perfect obedience. Our only hope of transformation is to behold Jesus and allow Him to work in us. If Paul’s approach is foreign to our experience it demonstrates how far we have strayed from Biblical thinking and ministry.

This passage (1:3 – 9) anticipates Chapter 15, the great Resurrection chapter with its promise, “Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly” (15:49). It also anticipates the great cry of 15:55 – 57, ““Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Verse 1:7 with its “eagerly awaiting the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ” unfolds in Chapter 15.

We can minister confidently to God’s people when we affirm the perfect work of Jesus Christ in the Church, His Body. This affirmation reminds us that the work of the ministry is first and foremost the work of Jesus Christ and that we are called to be participants (to have koinonia) in His work – not to generate and sustain the work, only Christ can do the work of Christ.

Can we see how 1:3 – 9 plays into Chapter 2? We are to know Jesus Christ and Him crucified (2:2) so that our faith should not be founded on the wisdom of men but the power of God (2:5). Our trajectory in Christ found in 1:7 is connected to 2:9 – 10 which again is connected to Chapter 15.

If we are in Christ, if that which is working within us is the work of Christ, if we are indeed in the “fellowship (koinonia) of His Son” (1:9) then we ought to realize that “a natural man does not accept or understand or discern the things of the Spirit of God” (2:14), in fact, “they are foolishness to him”.

But then, do we believe this? What does our teaching and preaching tell us about what we really believe? Do we believe that only the Holy Spirit can reveal Christ and His Word to us? Do we really need the Holy Spirit to live? To understand? To preach and teach? To understand what we read and hear? Are we functionally self-sufficient? Are we submitting to the Word of God in the Spirit of God or are we superimposing a humanistic mindset on the Bible and church-life?

Do we conform our educational standards to the world? Do we conform our communication methods to the world? Do we import motivational and marketing techniques from the world?

Are we living as the People of God or as “mere men” (3:3)?

“For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God. But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.”” (1 Cor. 26 – 31).

Prayer for Ministry

Holy Father,

I pray that my preaching may communicate sound teaching,

And I pray that my teaching may have the passion of preaching.

For if my preaching does not contain sound Biblical teaching,

And if my teaching has not Gospel passion and conviction;

Then I do not deserve to be heard,

And I have dishonored my calling in Jesus Christ.

Doulos